


The Last Time Beth Saw Maggie

by cestmabiologie



Category: Orphan Black
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 21:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5717524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cestmabiologie/pseuds/cestmabiologie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An exploration of possibilities based on this comic panel (<a href="http://56.media.tumblr.com/c9b1ea21bf88a0c9687fc6bd4d16274d/tumblr_o0d6n9kHmn1qgwplgo1_400.jpg">x</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Time Beth Saw Maggie

**Author's Note:**

> [Warnings: guns, blood]

_All of her training, all of her drills, all of her shooting at targets and paper silhouettes of human heads had technically prepared her for this moment. Beth knew how to hold a gun, how to aim, how to shoot. But no one had prepared her for how it felt to aim a gun at a living person and just know that she was about to take a life. As she looked Maggie Chen in the eyes she fought hard to tear herself free of these feelings and—_

**I.**

Beth hadn’t been sure it was Maggie Chen until she’d seen the recognition in her face. There. This was the real deal and not some notes and a photograph in a file stashed in Beth’s desk. This was nearly a year of research. Of digging in deep and coming up with lungs filled with dirt. Of signs and symbols and verses. Of paper trails and bullet holes. Of blood spatter and versions of Beth—a list of Beths crossed out. Beth had crossed each name out herself one by one. Sometimes she added a name and crossed it out before the ink could dry. Names smudged on her hands.

Beth wasn’t sure what she’d planned to do if she ever did find Maggie Chen. And she still wasn’t sure. Except after a half-skipped heartbeat Maggie Chen turned and ran and Beth knew that if she let her leave she might never get another chance.

And now there were alone in an alleyway. The sounds of the street they’d left had faded to almost nothing. Beth wasn’t surprised when she realized that she’d drawn her gun while in pursuit. She imagined herself a solid wall blocking them into the alleyway. She levelled her gun to Maggie Chen’s chest. She was going to get answers.

“Why are you hunting us?”

Maggie Chen was cowering.

“Please—” she shuddered and gasped. Her hands were flung up in front of her face. Her hands looked soft. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know you.”

One year ago, Beth would have felt sympathy for this woman. One year ago, she would have believed that this stranger was, in fact, a stranger who had no bearing on her life. But the year had taught her to suspect and to doubt everyone and everything around her.

“You know me!” Beth’s voice climbed, “I know what you’ve done.”

“Please,” she said again. Her eyes flicked upward. Beth looked up. She saw a maze of wet brick and fire escapes.

Maggie Chen lunged at her and—

 

**II.**

“It’s you. It’s been you this whole time, hasn’t it?”  
  
Beth had suspected for a long time. Really, she’d suspected Maggie from the moment she’d contacted her. But Beth needed information. The others relied on her for it. Beth knew that if she was smart about it, she could maybe learn enough to protect them.

But time had run out for Beth to be smart about Maggie Chen. People were dying and Beth knew that Maggie was connected to the deaths. And she was sure that it was only a matter of time before Beth was the next death on the list. In fact, she was pretty goddamned sure she was the next death on the list.

“It’s over, Maggie.”

“You need to understand that this is so much bigger than me,” Maggie said. She took a step forward and Beth half expected her to reach for the gun. But she didn’t. She had taken a step forward and then stopped to watch Beth closely.

“Killing me won’t end anything. You’re already in too deep, Beth. You must know that you’re not getting out of this.”

Beth understood this to be true. The weight of all of the lives lived by others with her face had been pressing at her from all sides for months. And all of their deaths. They weighed on her shoulders. They formed hairline fractures in her bones. Beth also understood that this weight shouldn’t kill her today.

At least that’s what she hoped (a mostly sisyphean sort of hope).

“But killing me will end something, won’t it?” Beth said.

“You’re something that never should have existed,” Maggie said. “You’re an abomination. You must be cleansed.”

Beth braced for the shot that should have been the punctuation to Maggie’s words, but none came. Maggie was tense.

Beth didn’t know whether or not she was an abomination. She didn’t know whether she deserved to exist. But she did know that she did not want to die and—

 

**III.**

“Where is she?” Beth shouted. Her voice bounced off the brick. She hadn’t expected that much anger to come through.  
  
Beth watched Maggie Chen’s face, but even held at gunpoint it didn’t betray anything. Beth refused to look away to search for herself. It was too risky.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Maggie said. She didn’t appear to be armed. Beth wasn’t surprised; she’d realized too late that Maggie never did her own dirty work.

“She’s like me, isn’t she?” Beth bit down on the question and crushed it with her molars. Otherwise her voice might betray just how horrified she was, how horrified she had been when she’d understood.

Maggie’s expression hardened.

“She is nothing like you.”

“Because you brainwashed her, didn’t you?” Beth spat, “What did you do to her—what did you make her believe to have her kill these people who are just like her?”

Maggie said nothing.

“Can she hear us right now?”

Beth knew that she was there, somewhere, listening. The moment she’d stepped into the alleyway she’d known that she was somebody’s target. She could feel the sight trained on her skull.  

Maggie nodded. A tiny nod, barely a tilt of her head, but it was enough.

“Then call her off.”

A beat stretched thin between them. If Maggie could have found it within her to laugh she would have. But she didn’t. Her patience with this exchange was fraying fast. This exchange should have already ended with Beth bleeding out at Maggie’s feet.

“You have her trained like a dog, don’t you?” Beth said, “You can call her off.”

“I showed her compassion,” Maggie said simply.

“You’re a monster,” Beth replied and—

 

**IV.**  
     
This was where they met. Sometimes. Sometimes they met in a different alleyway, in a different neighbourhood. Maggie was nervous, so they never met in the public eye, never in a park, never at a street corner, never in a diner where Beth could tear napkins into shreds and twists as Maggie gave her answers. And Maggie gave her answers. And Beth gave her answers. Sometimes they found the seams where what Maggie knew met with what Beth knew and they saw exactly how they fit together. Sometimes every edge seemed ragged and wrong. Every time they both left agreeing that they needed more.

Beth usually looked forward to these meetings, in the way that a person might look forward to a diagnosis. It might not be information that she wanted to hear, but she needed to hear it to move forward. To make choices.

“Hey. I’m on the clock right now. You said you found something?”

Maggie was quiet and Beth felt a twinge in her chest. Something wasn’t right. She took in a slow breath and just as slowly released it.

“What is it?” she tried again, “What did you find?”

Maggie shook her head. Maggie, who once brought coffee to one of their meetings, who once reminded her to button up her coat against the wind. Maggie, who made Beth feel like she mattered somehow. Maggie, who understood that Beth deserved answers. Maggie, who understood just how much Beth knew.

Oh no.

“Why?” Beth felt her mouth form the question as her mind buzzed. Why was she in an alley with only one exit? Why had she trusted so easily? Why had this person told her so much only to lead her to this moment?

She couldn’t get a read on Maggie’s expression.

“You always asked why. You never stopped to ask who.” Maggie spoke slowly. Maggie, who’d told Beth that she’d had a part in bringing her into the world, who’d told Beth that she’d left the project for moral reasons, who’d told Beth that she was ashamed to have played God.

Beth didn’t understand how she’d let this happen to her. How she’d let this happen to the others. But she could stop it. She reached for her gun and—

_just like that. Just a single finger squeezing against metal: a life, emptying out breath and blood to the alleyway. Beth expected to feel something free itself in her chest. Instead she felt panic._


End file.
